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After an off-day yesterday, the Diamondbacks return to the fray against the Rockies this afternoon. Ok, technically, it wasn't an off-day, but our offense appears to have missed that memo, as well as the general apathy towards the game shown by all of us in Arizona who didn't get to watch it. So we now find ourselves turning to the Petit Unit to avoid the sweep - the third time we've found ourselves saying that since July 29, after series against the Phillies and in Washington, and the results have been split 50/50.
Petit continues to be much better on the road (3.14 ERA) than at home (8.01), though I'm not sure Coors is the best place for any extreme fly-ball pitcher to be starting. However, his second-half HR rate is much improved, dropping from three per nine IP before the break, to a much-more respectable 1.09 after it. He'll need to maintain that kind of rate if he's to have any chance of winning this one. However, the hitters will have to do more than they have in the first couple of games - not just getting opportunities but driving them in, since they're hitting .062 with runners in scoring position this series.
Line-up
- Ryan Roberts, 2B
- Eric Byrnes, LF
- Justin Upton, RF
- Mark Reynolds, 3B
- Rusty Ryal, 1B
- Chris Young, CF
- John Hester, C
- Augie Ojeda, SS
- Yusmeiro Petit, P
The dbacksinsider Twitter feed appears to have dried up this morning, so I had to manually type the above. I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for you people... Byrnes gets his start in LF, but I do not look at the bottom half of our order and anticipate an all-you-can-eat buffet of runs here. Our guest recapper for this first Sunday of the month will be wailord, so we'll see what he can come up. Will be drifting in and out, got to write a review of Eagle Eye: in summary, crap, but undeniably glossy and expensive crap,